NEFFP, RAWANG

16 JAN 2015

Fishing in Natural Exotic Fish Fishing Pond using ground-bait was a revelation for anglers like me to come and visit this place over and over again. Most of the time it was pretty easy in hooking the usual heavyweight contender like the Asian Redtail and Amazonian Catfish. Matsumoto ground bait range adds up a new challenge for us especially after Mahfuz ability in unlocking the Mekong Catfish Bait combination in NEFFP.

Andrew just came back from a long holiday and we setup a short trip to NEFFP to relive my glorious moment landing a Mekong Catfish using the sought after bait in this pond. Mahfuz was kind enough to prepare me 2 combination for Mekong Catfish and Rohu. It all comes in a prepacked in portions, simply add the required flavor, groundbait 929 and fish pallet as the base combination to hold the flavor together. Just premixed everything in advance, I mixed mine in the morning and should be ready for use around 4.00pm. We head off to NEFFP around 3.00pm as we wanted to have a late session due to the scorching heat and poorer bite rate from 10am to 2.00pm.

Matsumoto Rohu Bait 🙂

My kinda rig, 2 hooks and a spring with lead in the center to ensure the bait sinks quickly to the bottom. PBA 2 hooks are illegal in NEFFP.

I’ve been receiving a lot of inquiries about the rig setup I used in NEFFP. As shown above, the rig is proven and tested that it is able to handle a Mekong catfish but occasionally fails when it comes to landing a Pacu. Several times the hook where broken off due to intense pressure when a Pacu strikes. The shock leader it has to be less than 30lb, anything more than 30lb will experience lesser bite rate.

A big chunk of bait goes to the spring and small bite size balls goes to each hook

Rohu, a non native species..

Average size in NEFFP, 3-4kg each

The result was outstanding, the first 1 hour we landed 5 Rohu it was like 1 fish every cast. I guess the fish here was rarely fished using ground bait as most anglers who visited this place would go for the Amazonian or Asian catfish. The Rohu put a decent fight and using only light rod gives the angler a balance feel in winning every cast. The bait was proven once again that it works for Rohu. The other variation for Mekong however fails to attract a Mekong catfish but still works for Rohu.

As we continue on, Andrew landed his first rohu. Too bad that it was a slow session for him that day haha. The other thing I want to share is people are skeptical that catfish takes ground-bait at NEFFP. My last visit, Mahfuz landed an Amazonian and this time I landed 1 Amazonian and 1 Huge Asian Redtail. The bait covers a variety of species and works well as NEFFP.

AG with his first ever Rohu!

This is probably the longest Asian Redtail catfish I’ve encountered and probably the heaviest.

One of many rohu that we landed that day!

A good old Amazonian Catfish!

Amazonian catfish are a great game fish, having hard time to stop from running under the restaurant. Solpara 63slj paired with Daiwa Exceler 3000 2014 variant is a great combination!

As burning daylight cools off and towards the end, bite rate doesn’t seems to slow down. Constantly we manage to land a couple more Rohu and AG’s Rohu weighs more than 9kg! The fish put up good fight but swiftly taken care with AG’s mid-heavy setup 😛

10 Rohu, 1 Amazonian and 1 Asian the total tally of the day. Too bad the Mekong Catfish are not interested with the bait we throw at them. Still was a good outing today although we did not land our target species. We lived to fight another day and hopefully, AG’s will have chance to land one officially.

Author: Noru Razak

Angler, Journalist and Conservationist.. A short summary about my traits. I have been fishing since I am still a kid, thanks to my dad who shared all the basic knowledge of fishing. Fishyology will become a site to share knowledge and experience for all anglers across the globe.